The Right (and Wrong) Way to Roll Out Mystery Shopping
Mystery shopping is one of the best ways to understand the real customer experience. But here’s where businesses go wrong: they announce it too soon.
The moment staff know they’re being mystery shopped, their behaviour instantly improves. Sounds like a win, right? Not exactly. Because that means you never get a true baseline of how things were before.
That’s why there’s a case to be made for starting in secret.
But there’s a right way—and a very wrong way—to do it.
Step 1: Start With Secret Mystery Shops
Before rolling out a full mystery shopping program, keep it under wraps.
❌ No announcements.
❌ No training.
❌ No warnings.
This gives you a pure look at what’s really happening. Because once employees know they’re being evaluated, they naturally step up their game. But what was it like before? That’s what you need to know.
The key here is discipline. Keep the data to yourself. Don’t act on it. This is not the moment to start calling out individual employees. It’s just to establish a baseline.
Step 2: Don’t Use Secret Shops as a Weapon
Here’s where companies completely ruin the process.
They take the results from secret mystery shops and punish employees who didn’t perform well—without them ever knowing they were being evaluated in the first place.
🚨 Big mistake.
What happens next?
👉 Employees feel blindsided and betrayed.
👉 Word spreads. Staff start whispering about “secret spies.”
👉 Team morale tanks, and the program becomes a fear-based system instead of a tool for improvement.
Mystery shopping should never feel like a “gotcha” moment. If you roll it out like that, expect resistance, resentment, and, ironically, worse service.
Step 3: Roll It Out Properly
Once you have baseline data, then it’s time to communicate.
✔️ Be transparent. Let employees know why mystery shopping is being implemented—not to catch them out, but to improve the customer experience.
✔️ Focus on coaching, not criticism. Use results to help employees grow.
✔️ Make it a positive process. Recognise great service. Reward strong performance.
Here’s a powerful way to introduce it:
🗣️ “We ran an initial round of secret mystery shops—not to evaluate individuals, but to see where we stand. Now, we’re rolling it out properly to help us improve together.”
This removes fear and replaces it with trust.
Final Thoughts
Mystery shopping isn’t just about measuring service—it’s about influencing it.
If you do it right, employees buy in, service improves, and the entire customer experience gets better.
If you do it wrong, you create mistrust and anxiety that does more harm than good.
So, before you launch a mystery shopping program, ask yourself:
❓ Are we doing this to improve or to punish?
❓ Are we rolling it out in a way that builds trust?
❓ Are we giving our team the tools to succeed?
Because mystery shopping should never be a weapon—it should be a strategy for growth.
